1 Corinthians Chapter 12:17-21

Your uniqueness is why you belong here, because we're all unique. And if we were all the same, it would be redundant or one of us wouldn't be necessary. The Bible talks about this uniqueness.

And because of that, it doesn't matter what somebody does, their past, their background, how they help, every person's important. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David Magee. David is the Senior Pastor of the Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. No matter who you are or what church you may attend, God has a design for each church and every member of that church. Find out more about this as Pastor David continues in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. But before we join David, have you ever considered the Bible as a whole? It's more than just a history book, a book of poetry, or a series of stories to share in Sunday School class. The Bible is one book with one central message. You heard me right, there is one main message in the Bible, and David Magee is ready to share that life-changing message with you in his latest DVD entitled, One Book, One Message. Join David as he takes you from Genesis to Revelation and unlocks the most profound truth of all the Scripture. You'll never look at the Bible the same way again. The DVD One Book, One Message is our gift to you when you call to support Cross the Bridge today.

You can call 877-458-5508 or go online to crossthebridge.com. Now here's David Magee with part three of his teaching, Quit Dating the Church. First Corinthians chapter 12 verse 17 says, If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them in the body just as he pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be?

But now indeed there are many members yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you. I've heard people say, I only need God.

You're wrong. We need each other. The Bible points that out.

This verse points that out. It says, one member can't say to another, we don't need you. If the eye said to the hand, we don't need you and the hand ran off, how would you feed yourself? What if your brain got in a mutiny or your hand got in a mutiny? What if your hand said, you know, I'm tired of the brain running everything. We do everything the brain wants to do. The brain says, do this and we do that. The brain says, do that. I'm sick of that. And then next time you go to eat, your hand says, you know what, I think now's the time. And you pick up a fork and your brain's going fork, your hand take the food to your mouth, but the hand says, nope, I am taking the brain out and your fork lands right in the middle of the forehead. Why?

Because your hand's in rebellion. The body doesn't function well like that. We need each other. That's the next life lesson here is we need God and we need each other. We need God and we need each other.

That's scary, I understand. To think that we need each other. Why do we need each other? Because somebody beside you has gifts you don't have and one day you're going to need those gifts.

And I know we like to think that we're all independent, but you're not. You probably go to a grocery store to buy your food that somebody else grew. You buy meat there that somebody else raised and slaughtered. You live in a house that somebody else built.

You drive a car that somebody else built. We need each other. And there's nothing wrong with that.

God set it up like that. And we need to become more like Jesus in our relationships with one another. And to realize that we need to start trying to treat each other like Jesus treats us. What if we treated each other the way that Jesus treats us?

What if Jesus treated us like we treat each other? What if you go to pray tonight or tomorrow and you say, God, Jesus, I am so sorry. Lord, I messed up.

I shouldn't have said that and I shouldn't have done that. I said, please forgive me, Jesus. And Jesus says, oh yes, I forgive you. Okay, thank you, God, for forgiving me. Thank you, Jesus, for forgiving me. I'm going to go on my way now. Okay, my son, go on your way. God bless you.

You're forgiven. You walk away and Jesus says, I can't wait to get on Facebook. You wouldn't believe what he did.

Amen or on me? What if we're playing the what if game? What if the church treated families like sometimes the families treat the church?

Would it work? I would call a family and go, hey, you know, we really like you guys but we've been discussing it and there's another family and we've been talking about it. And to be honest, we like their kids a little better so we're going to go with the other family. Or somebody calls and says, hey, you know what, we're just called to tell you, you know, we heard this rumor and we're not even going to ask you whether it's true or not or if it's actually happened but we're going to pick the other family. We're going to have them come to our church.

We're going to ask you not to. Do you realize people do that? How would you imagine that that makes a leader, pastor, deacon, elder feel especially when that leader knows that God brought him? Is that the kind of commitment you want from leadership here? What would the world look like if you and I and you and the people around you were actually better friends, more committed?

Do you understand that's something that you need? I think most of us understand how painful loneliness is. God has a solution for loneliness, a relationship with him and part of his solution is called the church, the body of Christ.

And I wonder how many murders and suicides and hunger and poverty could it be avoided if we were the kind of friends that God wants us to be with each other. There's a story in the Bible about Naomi. She has two sons. The two sons marry these two daughters and later on the two sons die and she turns to the two daughters-in-laws and said, you know what? I'm too old to have any more kids. Just go and try to find somebody else to marry.

And Orpah goes off and does that. But listen to what Ruth says. Ruth chapter 1 verse 16. But Ruth said, entreat me not to leave you.

Don't ask me to leave you or to turn back from following after you. For wherever you go, I will go. And wherever you lodge or live, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people and your God my God. And where you die, I will die and there I will be buried.

And the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts you and me. That's commitment. That's friendship. That's the kind of commitment that we as a body of Christ are supposed to have.

Oh, but what happens if one of us perceives a flaw in the other? Let me go ahead and tell you as senior pastor, I know you got problems. I know you got issues. The assisting pastors, the elders know you got problems and issues. When somebody sits down and says, oh, man, I'm dealing with this. You know what?

We're very rarely shocked. And a lot of times it's stuff that either we've done in the past or somebody we know has been involved with, we're not going to look at you and go, oh, man, I didn't know you had problems. Maybe you should go to church somewhere else. When you become aware of a flaw or you perceive there's a flaw in somebody, how you handle them tells a lot about your character. The Bible says love covers a multitude of sins. I want to tell you as a pastor that I'm committed to the people here.

Not until I find out they messed up. The story of Noah's sons and it's very interesting. Noah, of course, there was the flood.

He built the boat. The flood came, went back. Noah planted a vineyard and after the flood and he drank of the fruit of the vineyard, drank too much, got drunk and was naked in his tent. And Ham went into his dad's tent, saw his dad was in there, had been drinking and was naked, went out and told his two other brothers, man, dad, got drunk.

He's in there. Man, this is messed up. Ham revealed what Noah did wrong. Shem and Japheth, the other two sons, you know what they did?

They got a blanket. They walked backwards and they covered their father up. What's interesting is Ham for the rest of his life was cursed for uncovering the sins of his father. Japheth and Shem were blessed because they respected their father.

As a matter of fact, here's something that is interesting. What does Shem mean? In the Hebrew, it means name.

As a matter of fact, a lot of people, Jewish people, they refer to God as Hashem. What does that mean? The name.

Why is that important? Because the name covers your sins. When you go to Jesus and ask Him to forgive you, what does He do? He forgives you. Does He post it on Facebook? No.

I'm sure He could. Yeah, but somebody needed to tell other people about Noah's drunkenness. You know what? You need to be careful with that. And granted, there are times when somebody messes up or somebody in leadership messes up where somebody needs to sit down with them and say, hey, you know, this is the issue. Far too often we sell each other out and expose each other when we're vulnerable.

And the reason we do that sometimes, expose each other's sins, it's not because we're so spiritual. It's because a lot of times there's rebellion in our hearts and we're looking for a flaw in authority. The flesh always looks for an excuse or a flaw in authority or in leadership to express rebellion. Let me say that again. The flesh always looks for an excuse or a flaw in authority or in leadership to express rebellion. What kind of friend do you want?

Do you want a friend every time you're vulnerable, every time you mess up, they expose you? We think that's spiritual. You know what? Far too often it's not. It's carnal.

It stinks in the eyes and the nostrils of God. This body, this fellowship, really when you think about it, it's a love story. It's a love story with God and because God loves us, it's a love story with us. And may your love story be filled with life and may your life story be filled with love. And then the beauty of that commitment, there's something that happens.

There's a safety, a security, an assurance. John 15 verse 13, Jesus says, greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. Jesus calls us friends.

If we follow him, believe in him, do what he says, he says, you are my friend. And he says, greater love has no one than this, than lay down one's life for his friends. But let's go to the verse before that.

Check this out. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I've loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. Let's add one more verse. This is my commandment that you love one another as I've loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends. You are my friends if you do whatever I commanded you.

See, a lot of us, we grew up not knowing how to be friends. You're listening to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. We'll return to the teaching in just a moment. But first, we have a brand new DVD that we would love to send to you. It's called One Book, One Message. In this powerful DVD, David sweeps through the entire Bible to help you understand the main message of all of scripture. Once you grasp this amazing truth, you will never look at the Bible the same way again. One Book, One Message is our gift to you today when you call with a gift of any amount to Cross the Bridge.

Your gift helps keep us on the air, encouraging you and others. So call today. The number is 877-458-5508. That's 877-458-5508.

Or go online to crossthebridge.com. Friend, do you have a heart for the lost? I invite you to send us the first names of your lost loved ones, and we will have hundreds of people praying for them. Just go to crossthebridge.com and click on the prayer button, and you'll enter their name. And if you put your name and email address in there, I'll send you free resources to equip you to pray and teach you how to reach your lost loved ones.

Please, don't wait. This is so important. So please, again, go to crossthebridge.com and click on the prayer button and send us the first names of lost loved ones.

We'll send you some free information, and together we can partner to deliver the good news of Jesus Christ to the whole world, the whole book for the whole world. Now let's return to our study. In the garden, when everything was perfect, we fell, we sinned. And the fall, we still have a very strong desire to have friendships with one another. But our ability to be a friend has been affected by the fall. We still desire a friend that's a good friend and even a perfect friend. But you need to understand that all of us need to work on being better friends.

Let me put it another way. Your desire to have a strong husband or a wife, a good one, a perfect one, is still there. But your ability to be a perfect wife or a perfect husband went down with the fall. And now we're all desperate for God to bring us back up again. Matthew 7, 12, Jesus said, in everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the law and the prophets.

You know what's staggering about that? The golden rule. There's only two things that Jesus says. This is everything. This is the whole Bible summed up.

This is all the law. This is all the prophets. He says, love God, love people, and treat other people the way you want to be treated. This book is filled with stories of betrayal and people exposing weaknesses and the story of Delilah exposing Samson. Delilah's not a hero, is she? And yet shame on us that some of us have treated our friends like that.

Do you understand the Bible talks about we shouldn't even treat our enemies like that. There's a story in the book of Genesis where Dinah is one of the daughters and she's raped, wronged. I mean, that family was wrong. They raped the daughter. But then what Simeon and Levi, they go to this village and go, look, here's the thing. In order for us to get married and you to marry our sister and for us all to get along, you guys gotta go through circumcision.

They were all adults. Eight days old, circumcision is one thing. When you're an adult, different thing. If you're a young man, ask your parents.

So a lot of pain, swelling, et cetera, et cetera. And so after a couple of days, these guys are just like, ugh. And it was then they attacked them. In their moment of weakness and vulnerability, Genesis 34, 30. Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, you have troubled me by making me obnoxious among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites. And since I am few in number, they will gather themselves together against me and kill me.

I shall be destroyed in my household. He rebuked them. Jacob rebuked them for taking advantage of the weakness of their enemy. As a matter of fact, later on, guess what? They were cursed for doing this. Genesis 49. Simeon and Levi are two of a kind.

This is during the blessing and they miss out on a blessing. Why? Because they expose the weakness of an enemy.

Simeon and Levi are two of a kind. Their weapons are instruments of violence. May I never join in their meetings.

May I never be a party to their plans. For in their anger, they murdered men and crippled oxen just for sport. A curse on their anger for it is fierce. A curse on their wrath for it is cruel. I will scatter them among the descendants of Jacob.

I will disperse them throughout Israel. Being a good friend does not come naturally. Being a committed part of a church does not come naturally, but it does come supernaturally. Would any within the sound of my voice say, nah, I'm the absolutely best friend that I could be. No. We need help. And this is a great place to learn how to be friends. And may we learn to see each other through the eyes of God. Do you understand when you ask God to forgive you, he forgives you. You know what he sees when he looks at you?

Wrapped in the robe of righteousness. He doesn't see anything you've ever done wrong. Nothing.

Not a thing. You know, when I look out in the sunny morning here, I don't look at, well, there's Mary who's really struggling. Boy, in her marriage. There's Joe. Boy, he's just left his wife. And there's that couple over there. Oh, man, they're a mess. Oh, there's Fred.

He got drunk last Thursday. You know what? I don't look at y'all and say that. I look out. You know what I see? I see Jesus. I see the righteousness of God.

You know why I see that? I choose to. Am I ignorant of everything anybody's done? No. I choose to. I choose to.

May we begin to see each other the way that God sees us. Now, let me ask you a question. Do you want better friends? Most of us do.

Absolutely. You want more committed friends? I do. I think you do too.

What do you do? You'd be a better friend. A more committed friend. Well, I've been hurt. Welcome to the human race. Get past it. Get over it.

I'm just not sure I can get past this one wounding. You know what? If you won't do it because I'm asking you and you won't do it because of the friends there around you, Jesus is asking you to do this. Will you do it for Him? Will you be a better friend to people for Jesus? The best friend that you'll ever have is asking you to be as one together? Final life lesson here is God wants us to be better friends to each other and better parts or members of the body of Christ. God wants us to be better friends to each other and better parts or members of the body of Christ.

That's God's design for your life. Your life can be better. If you will listen to this, and I don't just talk to say things. Share from the heart that if you listen to this and apply it, your life will be so much more blessed.

And if you keep exposing the weaknesses or the flaws of your friends, don't be surprised when they return the favor. I want to be more like Jesus. I want to be the friend that Jesus is to us. And if you take this little step, this little step, you know, we think about changing our lives and go, oh, that's so huge. I don't know if I can change my life.

Let me take you through something that God spoke to me. Change your day, change your life. If you can simply change your day, if you can simply change the way that you talk or run people down or the kind of friend you are, you know, encourage people just a little more, you just simply change your day, you change your life. And if you change your life, you change the world.

See, because if your life is different, it begins to affect every person that you come in contact with, every friend you have, every person at work, every person at school, every person you go to church with. When you change your day, you change your life. When you change your life, you change the world. You can change the world. And you can either change the world or leave no trace that you were ever here.

Those are the decisions. Make the small changes. Change your life, change your world.

Change your world or you leave no legacy, no influence, no impact after you're gone. Jesus over and over reveals himself to be a friend that's closer than a brother. And when we say we want to be more like Jesus, you know what? We want to be that kind of friend. And I think you need that kind of friend and I openly confess I do. Let's pray. God, thank you. Thank you that amazingly enough, you invite us to be your friend. And God, you do that not wondering if we are going to mess up.

God, you do that in full knowledge that we're going to mess up. And yet, you still invite us to be your friend. You invite us to be forgiven.

Lord, thank you. Thank you for inviting us to be your friend. And you told us greater love has nobody than this than to lay down this life. And you showed us what that looked like. You showed us what real friendship looks like.

You laid down your life for us. And then you tell us to go and love each other like that. God, we need your help. We need your help to love each other.

We need your help not to desire to expose weaknesses or flaws. God, over and over, we see people that did that, they lived cursed lives. And God, people that loved each other enough to walk through the trials and storms you blessed.

Religion may try to teach us something else, but God, your love is trying to show us something here today. And Lord, you call to each person right now and you want them to be your friend. You want them to come to you to ask you to forgive them. And you're here right now, Jesus. Holy Spirit, come on.

Woo us. Convince us of our need for you. Friend, if you're not sure you've been forgiven, you want to ask God to forgive you today, you can do that. If you want to ask God to help you be a better friend, or maybe you want to ask God for better friends, here's your opportunity. God's here. He's waiting on you. He knows what you've done wrong. He's simply waiting for you to come to Him. See, He died on the cross for your wrongdoings, for your sin. And He wants to forgive you right now. And He's waiting on you like a friend. Except this friend is God Himself. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Now, God wants you to pray this prayer so much that He died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask Him to forgive you.

Please pray this prayer with me, out loud, right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you, all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. Jesus said He would not turn anybody away who comes to Him.

And He came for those people who knew they needed forgiveness, those who were sick, not the righteous. So congratulations, friend. You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we would love to hear from you. You can call us toll free at 877-458-5508 to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ. If you've been encouraged by this ministry, contact us today. Your prayers and financial support help keep us on the air encouraging you and others. Call today and we'll send you a copy of Pastor David's brand-new DVD entitled One Book, One Message.

You'll be blessed by this overview of the Bible and it will forever change how you read the Scriptures. To get your copy, call 877-458-5508. That's 877-458-5508. Or visit us online at crossthebridge.com. While there, make sure to sign up for the free email devotionally. Also, if you're not able to make it to your home church this Sunday, why not join us for our live stream at 9 and 1130 Eastern. Just visit crossthebridge.com and click on our live stream link. There you can watch Pastor David teach from his home church, The Bridge, in Kernersville, North Carolina. Again, that website is crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening. We hope you'll join us next time as we continue to cross the bridge.